Nimitz UFO Indie Doc Sheds Light in the Darkness

When filmmaker Dave Beaty heard about the strange encounter in November of 2004 between dozens of ‘Tic-Tac’ shaped UFOs, several Naval fighter jets, and the USS Nimitz battle group, he was captivated. Much like the rest of the tireless researchers, filmmakers, and writers who forge the Ufological narrative, Beaty stayed up late, spending countless hours of his personal time to tell a story.

The film uses a mix of stock Navy footage and digitally rendered animations to provide a detailed yet quick recap of the now famous 2004 Nimitz UFO Incident. While much of the documentation of that event is still classified or hidden away by various other interests, the film tells the story with as much accuracy as possible.

Beaty explained in an interview,

“I am using the primary witness accounts available to the public. I have interviewed several of the USS Princeton Air Controllers and radar techs. CDR. David Fravor was interviewed by dozens of journalists, as were CDR. Slaight, and Senior Chief Day. The “Female Pilot” gave a detailed briefing to the AATIP program. These primary witnesses to the event, the radar screens, the cockpits, and the close up visual observations of some of the world’s most highly trained observers leads me to believe what they say is very accurate. So in making this re-creation, I used all those details. Location, time, date, weather, seas, jets, altitudes, speeds, distances, directions. These things are known for the most part. The part that is fiction is what the pilots said to each other – the dialog is fiction.”

As was reported in August of 2018, an unredacted Nimitz report was leaked on Chris Mellon’s website. Mellon, a previous intelligence advisor to the Clinton administration, and To The Star’s Academy’s National Security Affairs Advisor, has made no official comment concerning the leak, but rumors circulating within the UFO community are pointing to a hack. The unredacted report contained the names and personal information of the various pilots involved, including the mystery female pilot who has yet to publicly come forward. Unfortunately, some unsavory profiteering and opportunistic UFO enthusiasts seem to have already released her name publicly on the internet. Beaty, who undoubtedly has seen the unredacted report, has taken the high road, as many other researchers have, and kept her name out of the video.

USS Nimitz

Beaty explained that creating CGI renderings and making films is his day job. He expressed that this project was different.

“It’s one of the most satisfying things to do, to create stories with total freedom, with no deadline and with no one reviewing proofs endlessly and changing my work.”

With over 18,000 views to date, interest has allegedly been expressed by some mainstream networks such as A&E. Whether this documentary becomes a funded full feature project or not, the true importance of it lies in its desire to seek out more witnesses to the incident.

Beaty explained that those witnesses are out there, he’s been contacted by some.

“In the film I provide an email of [email protected] for people to contact me if they have had sightings from military ships or planes. So far I have had several vets reach out to relate their sightings. We are working with a group to help organize military witnesses of UAP. We also hope to convince some of the USS Roosevelt sailors from 2015 to come forward. We believe that the Gimbal video shown by the NYT article was filmed on January 26th, 2015, off the coast of Florida by the Red Rippers squadron.”

The Nimitz event is still shrouded in a lot of mystery. While there is little doubt that the incident occurred, the UFO myth-making machine has been at work spinning various tales which are often sold as knowledge but fundamentally hinges purely on speculation and belief. Moreover, if more information is available, it is being held by very few people with various agendas. Whether Beaty knows it or not, this project of his is an attempt to democratize the knowledge surrounding this incredible event.

The (in)famous “Tic-Tac.”

UFO research has never been perfect and it is haunted by a lot of ghosts in its historical and ideological past. However, the UFO community, much the phenomenon it chases, always works at a grassroots level. With every attempt to gain more ‘official’ insight, it slips the proverbial leash and becomes something else entirely.

At the end of the film, any people with information concerning the Nimitz event, or other military UFO sightings, are asked to e-mail Beaty, and that their anonymity can be maintained. While checks and balances will obviously need to be put into place to ensure misinformation and disinformation isn’t disseminated as fact, the testimony of witnesses concerning this event becomes much more difficult to control. This is, curiously, one of the greatest aspects of the UFO community. No one owns the UFO narrative or discourse; some try to corner the market to ensure their ideological interpretation is popularized, but it isn’t long before rifts and tears eat away at them.

This indie UFO documentary is incredibly necessary, not just because it tells a good story and highlights the events which occurred in 2004, but because it attempts to bring much-needed information, data, and testimony out of the darkness and into the light.

MJ Banias is the author of “The UFO People: A Curious Culture” and curates the popular Fortean blog “Terra Obscura" and YouTube channel. He has appeared on multiple radio shows and podcasts including Coast to Coast AM, and his work has appeared in Fortean Times Magazine, FATE Magazine and in the book, “UFOs: Reframing the Debate."